Community Network Core

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Project Summary: The Community Network Core is a critical component of the Center's mission to improve the quality of life of middle-aged and older people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders through the development, implementation, and dissemination of evidence-based practice through community partnership. The goal of the Community Network Core is to nurture a sustainable collaborative research partnership between the Center and community clinical and services systems, primarily San Diego county's Adult and Older Adult Mental Health Services (AOAMHS), whose infrastructure will promote the research aims of the Center. Based on the models of community-based research and cultural exchange, this Core will partner with the AOAMHS to collaborate in all stages of research: needs assessment, study design, implementation, interpretation, and dissemination of the results. Other community partners will include the San Diego chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, community-based psychiatrists and clinics, regional homeless shelters, and other collaborators. The Community Network Core will seek to build, sustain, and expand community partnerships, and to mobilize community support and enhance infrastructure for research capacity. Our community partners will benefit by obtaining enhanced tangible resources including money, time, information, and access to technical and scientific expertise; the investigators will benefit by being able to study diverse populations, acquire "real world" information to guide the development of interventions and services, and developing insight and opportunities for improving community practice. The Community Network Core will evaluate the success of the partnerships on a regular basis using quantitative and qualitative procedures that the Center has developed. This Core will work closely with the other Cores to help accomplish the three major themes of the Center: optimizing pharmacotherapy; promoting recovery through psychosocial interventions; and developing and adapting assessments and interventions for underserved subgroups. Relevance: The Community Network Core will be a critical component of the the Center mission of improving the quality of life of middle-aged and older people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders in the community, a growing but severely underserved segment of the population.